[SOLVED] Proxmox Renaming

YaseenKamala

Member
Feb 2, 2021
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Paris
Hello dears,

I would like to know how to rename the Proxmox hostname while we are having a VMs in it. To clarify my question I know how renaming process is done but I want to know what to do while I am having a VM already installed within the NODE and the reason I am asking this question because it's written on the official website "This must be done on a empty node."! see the introduction section https://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Renaming_a_PVE_node

FYI:

I did that on a test environment I lost the VM which was installed.

Thanking in advance for any idea/support or help that you can provide
 

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The reason why a rename should happen on an empty node is because the node name is used in the /etc/pve directory. If you do a ls -l /etc/pve, you will see that many directories are symlinks to /etc/pve/nodes/<nodename>/.... That's why you "lost" the VMs, you will have to copy over the config files to the new directory. For example from /etc/pve/nodes/<oldname>/qemu-server/*.conf to /etc/pve/nodes/<newname>/qemu-server/.
 
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The reason why a rename should happen on an empty node is because the node name is used in the /etc/pve directory. If you do a ls -l /etc/pve, you will see that many directories are symlinks to /etc/pve/nodes/<nodename>/.... That's why you "lost" the VMs, you will have to copy over the config files to the new directory. For example from /etc/pve/nodes/<oldname>/qemu-server/*.conf to /etc/pve/nodes/<newname>/qemu-server/.
@aaron Thank you very much for you reply I really appreciated and I understood now why I lost the VMs. I am going to test that and will leave a comment in any case.


What I don't understand is once the name got changed how it's possible to relocate the config files to the new one? don't you think is better to make a backup of the config files first then do the process this way in case if I don't have them ( We are safe I can use the backup once!)

Again thank you so much. I wish you a very good day.
 
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don't you think is better to make a backup of the config files first then do the process this way in case if I don't have them ( We are safe I can use the backup once!)
Of course that is better :)
 
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Of course that is better :)

Hello again @aaron I followed your instructions just instead of "cp" I used "mv" command now I can see VMs are listed under the newname. however when I start the VM I got this error message "TASK ERROR: storage 'DATAPool' is not available on node 'gp1-test'"

I and I have checked the status of "DATAPool" it's OK and available in the GUI.

Any help is really appreciated again thanking you in advance :)
 
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Hello again @aaron I followed your instructions just instead of "cp" I used "mv" command now I can see VMs are listed under the newname. however when I start the VM I got this error message "TASK ERROR: storage 'DATAPool' is not available on node 'gp1-test'"

I and I have checked the status of "DATAPool" it's OK and available in the GUI.

Any help is really appreciated again thanking you in advance :)


@aaron Thank you so much I managed it by modifying the /etc/pve/storage.cfg with newnode name! :)